1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a method and an apparatus for processing a housing for an electronic device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic devices, such as portable electronic devices of stationary home or office appliances, are being purchased these days not only for reasons of functionality and price, but also according to the esthetics of their appearance. In order to meet a user's esthetic requirement, a housing for an electronic device is formed by being surface-processed, so that the appearance becomes elegant.
An example of one type of surface processing comprises hairline processing. In general, hairline processing denotes a process of drawing one or more thin lines on a metal plate such as aluminum and stainless. The hairline processing prevents glaring, which can cause a dazzle reflex by light shining off a glossy housing. In addition, hairline processing provides unique metal luster, removes or hides scratches or a damage marks on the surface of the housing, and makes the quality of a metal product more luxurious. There is a need for hairline processing techniques and its surface processing technology and equipment to improve as more various esthetic requirements in an aspect of recent high-priced digital home appliances have heightened consumer expectations that require improved quality and places a larger emphasis on an elegant appearance.
In general, a person of ordinary skill in the art manufactures a housing using a conventional method of attaching an inmold film to an injected material via inmold injection molding.
First, a person of ordinary skill in the art was able to provide a hairline of a housing by forming a print layer that prints hairline patterns on an inmold film and attaching the print layer of the inmold film to an injected material via the inmold injection molding. This method of forming a print layer is easy in expressing a hairline, but since the surface of a housing is smooth, the smooth texture associated with touching real metal cannot be achieved with this method.
Second, a person of ordinary skill in the art was also conventionally able to provide a hairline to a housing by unevenly forming a Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) film on an inmold film using a brush, coating a coating layer representing an outline of the unevenly formed hairline, and attaching the coating layer representing the outline of the unevenly formed hairline on an injected material via the inmold injection molding. The unevenness of the coating layer may be formed in more detail by forming an uneven depth of the PET film deep, but since there is a limitation in deepening the depth of the unevenness due to a limit of the thickness of the PET film, there is a difficulty in expressing the surface of a real metal.
Consequently, the conventional hairline processing method has a limit in expressing texture of real metal, and so there is a need in the art for a new alternative of hairline processing.